Paul Sng’s documentary offers a carefully balanced, clear-headed study of the myriad ways the UK property market has skewed and malfunctioned in the years since the Thatcher regime established the right-to-buy scheme. What’s notable is the scope of its inquiry: Sng ventures that the issue is as rooted in our primetime television schedules – where “poverty porn” frames affordable housing as a dead end rather than a societal cornerstone – as in those decisions taken in high council chambers.
It can feel breathless, striving to compress reams of information into 80 minutes, but Sng and cinematographer Nick Ward prove keen collectors of images that crystallise the debate they’re entering. On one side, concrete foxholes in abject disrepair; on the other, the shrink-wrapped gleam of luxury developments raised solely to be traded as status symbols. The juxtaposition, as in all our hometowns, is a provocation in itself.
